As expected, Halo 2 is getting the full anniversary treatment later this year, as part of the Halo: Master Chief Collection. That means a revamped graphics engine and the return of the classic Halo 2 multiplayer. And while Halo 3 and Halo 4 are also included in the Master Chief Collection, they are not getting the new engine designed by Saber Interactive.

343 industries released some screenshots of the game, which will be released in November later this year.

[Note: To make sure you see the differences as clearly as possible, be sure to click each image so that you can see an enlarged version of the comparison.]

Every screenshot on the left is from Halo 2 Anniversary, while the screenshots on the right are from the original Halo 2.

We first have a screen of Master Chief aboard Cairo station, an early Halo 2 level. Right away, we can notice the increased sharpness on the Chief’s armor, as well as the light that shines off his helmet. Even the decal on the floor is sharper. The updated models for the grunts are also impressive.

Jawdropping CGI upgrades, that’s for sure.
As for the in-game graphics, I am a little underwhelmed but I might’ve had my expectations too high.
Either way, a day one buy.

Runn

Wow. That looks awesome. It is such a big difference in graphics quality.

Mike

Unlike some games “cough” last of us “cough”

321

halo 2 came out for the first xbox. the last of us came out near the end of the ps3 era. are you really stupid enough to believe you actually made a valid comparison?

Jordan

CGI hell yes.. Gameplay… meh

Bobby Griffin

Day one buy for sure

RA3030

“Day one buy for sure”

You mean this redone game nor the Halo collection is not going to be free to play? OMG, so it’s just a Microsoft cash grab?

Bobby Griffin

Well every company in the world is trying to make money but if you don’t want it don’t buy it . I for one think it’s a great deal plus it comes with a movie and all the add on maps.

HercTheMerc

Unlike you morons who eat up Sony’s remakes when they offer one or 2 games with just a higher res/framerate (See: God of War HD collection, TLoU remaster, Jak and Daxter HD, etc) MS have done a remake for ONE franchise and included every mainline title, at 1080p 60fps, with dedicated servers and ALL NEW features that weren’t possible on the old hardware.

Cross-game multiplayer makes this a must buy, and this game is reviving Halo 2 MP (regarded as the best in the franchise) which closed down to the closure of original Xbox servers. As well as that, Halo:CE is getting online multiplayer for the FIRST time on Xbox, that’s huge.

All that for the price a shitty remake like the ones I listed would cost you, this is the God of remakes for one of the top franchises in gaming, the fact it includes 4 games already makes it better than 90% of console remakes.

So yeah, this isn’t a cash grab, so many fans actually wanted this and we got far more than we expected. Speak for yourself.

Nordu

there definitely is a notable improvement on gameplay graphics but man that cgi difference…the cgi looks really good even for today. Will probably pick it up for nostalgias sake.

Emery Calame

Wow it looks like Admiral hood went from being an oat-meal puppet version of Ron Perlman to Peter Weller with maybe a teensy hint of Robert Duval in there somewhere.

Emery Calame

Maybe Lance Henrikson? The eyes are wrong for that though.

Dangerousjo 1985

Damn the old halo 2 face look like Icecream lol

Manoj Varughese

Those times everyone craved for graphics like that…

http://www.facebook.com/Badassbab Babs

The first and last pic is in game and both look like they could be 360 level quality (this is coming to last gen too). The other pics are CG by Blur.

d0x360

Uhm…no

d0x360

The fact that they can get halo 2 looking that good while running 2 rendering engines is nothing short of Impressive. Its also a great idea. Play halo anniversary switching back and forth was cool and its gonna be even better this time